How to put on some Popeye arms...

(No native English speaker, so my apologies if this question is not precise enough.)

I've been training hard lately, fighting and weight-lifting,
and my hands and my wrists hurt more than usual these days.

When I complained about it to a friend who is a free-climber, he recommended me to
take some time to train the muscles in my forearms and my hands that are used to stretch the hands. (As opposed to the muscles that are used to close the hands when gripping, which are usually training with all arm exercises.)

So, my question is, how can I do that best?

My buddies have since recommended me to try some spinach,
but somehow I think I know that won't get me that far...

3) For what these guys refer to as "ulnar deviation", front and rear levering should do the trick. Start light - it's a lot harder than it looks.

4) For crush strength, there are grippers - IronMind makes the Captains of Crush line, which are quite good, or you can get the Heavy Grips set for significantly cheaper. I've got some of each. Caution: If you work your finger flexion, you need to work your finger extension as well - I haven't found a good way of doing that yet. Don't much care for the bands.

My muscles do not grow in response to isolation exercises. I tried all of the above and it did not work.

Instead my arms respond to lifting a heavy weight. If I wanted to make my forearms grow I would do deadlifts. That's puts a huge strain on ,well everything. But it does work both the grip (try doing 5 sets or more of less than 5 reps and see how well you can hold onto the bar) and forearms. It is the simple fact of trying to lift and hold onto all of this wieght that works the grip and forearms.

Another good exercise is the hack squat. Because here too you are lifting the wieght from the ground. A friend taught me a variant where at the top of the motion you curl the bar with your wrists and hold for 3 seconds.

Isolation exercises are a waste of time, unless your goal is body building. Muscles dont act in isolation. If you are lifting for performance, train the way your body works - multiple muscle groups working in conjunction to perform a task. Compound lifts like deadlifts (as are all olympic lifts), pull-ups, etc are great.

Isolation exercises are a waste of time, unless your goal is body building.

Great, another one.

Once I came across a question posted on a popular powerlifting website by a young Marine: how should he train to be able to do more chin-ups? I was amused when I read the arcane and non-specific advice the trooper had received: straight-arm pull-downs, reverse curls, avoiding the negative part of the chin-up every third workout... I had a radical thought: if you want to get good at chin-ups, why not try to do... a lot of chin-ups?

Similarly, if you want to have a strong grip, why not try to do... a lot of gripping? Sure, deadlifts (without straps) involve gripping, and so do chin-ups. Thick-bar deadlifts, etc. doubly so. There are lots of good options - including the ones I've laid out.

Similarly, if you want to have a strong grip, why not try to do... a lot of gripping? Sure, deadlifts (without straps) involve gripping, and so do chin-ups. Thick-bar deadlifts, etc. doubly so. There are lots of good options - including the ones I've laid out.

Except, while you are doing deadlifts and pull-ups (which develops forearms more than chinups), you are working dozens of other muscles, making your workout more efficient. Instead of doing 10-15 different lifts that have limited use when you go to the gym (such as wrist curls, bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, etc), you could be doing 4-6 different lifts, and spend about half the time and get better results (IMO).

I dont have much issue with grippers since you can do them anywhere (I used to use 'em on my daily commute to keep myself occupied).